


a leap of faith

by somniatoressinespe



Category: Runaways (TV 2017)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-17
Updated: 2018-12-17
Packaged: 2019-09-21 11:25:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,246
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17042840
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/somniatoressinespe/pseuds/somniatoressinespe
Summary: Karolina knew she was objectively beautiful.It wasn't arrogance, just a fact. Being the daughter of Leslie and Frank Dean had kind of made her win the genetic lottery, and it certainly didn't hurt that her mother had made sure she knew how to perform beauty from a young age.The first time she had sat beside the big mirror in her parent's bathroom, she still believed in her mother, in her faith and her principles. Leslie had looked almost proud while she instructed her on make-up and how she needed to keep appearances as the young face of the church. She was bred to beauty and she was good at it.or "karolina struggles with the concept of beauty"





	a leap of faith

Karolina knew she was objectively beautiful.

It wasn't arrogance, just a fact. Being the daughter of Leslie and Frank Dean had kind of made her win the genetic lottery, and it certainly didn't hurt that her mother had made sure she knew how to perform beauty from a young age.

The first time she had sat beside the big mirror in her parent's bathroom, she still believed in her mother, in her faith and her principles. Leslie had looked almost proud while she instructed her on make-up and how she needed to keep appearances as the young face of the church. She was bred to beauty and she was good at it.

Karolina had heard the sentence “You're beautiful.” said to her- or about her- many times.

She heard it said about her at the end of services, while worshippers congratulated her mother on the sermon.

(Her dad smiled with pride, and her mother smiled with something else.)

She had heard it from the boys at school, the year after the summer puberty decided to visit her, and the years after that.

Even when she had been the school pariah, the occasional boy looked at her from a distance, and if he was cocky enough, or stupid enough, he'd come over with an overused pick-up line and a “charming” smile.

Gert never forgave her for the time the stupid boy was Chase.

So yes, she knew she was beautiful. After all, it seemed to be the only thing people really noticed about her anyway.

That night on the ceiling, she wasn't that much surprised when Chase had kissed her. Disappointed, maybe. A bit guilty for leading him on all night, sure, but not surprised.

Karolina was stunned when Nico kissed her back, though. Because wanting to kiss Nico was unavoidable, it was a shattering force of attraction, it was like a gravity anchoring her to the ground. But being kissed back by Nico was a life-altering experience that she hadn't expected in her wildest of daydreams.

Because Nico was... Nico was everything, but more.

Nico wasn't beautiful in the sense that she was good looking.

(She was also that, Karolina had noticed that. Often.)

But Nico was beautiful like a tempest could be, like the moment before plummeting from a cliff, a scary-you-out-of-your-wits kind of beautiful; she was beautiful in a way only cheesy, overused metaphors can -or can't- convey.

She just was.

And Karolina could have never thought in a million years that Nico would kiss her back, but she had. Multiple times.

It was the sort of magic -of 'blessing' to use her mother's words- Karolina thought she'd lost when Amy's light had been blown, when her friends split up in the most painful way, in the most painful of times. She hadn't realized at the time that she what she had felt, what she still felt, towards Nico went way beyond what girls were supposed to feel for their best friend. The river in Egypt and all that.

This last month had been one of crazy self-discovery for Karolina. Between lesbianism, murder-happy parents, and sparkly, flying alienism she would honestly be not surprised if by the end of the year the runaways became the new pop sensation of the US with Old Lace as their mascot.

So, when she'd kissed Nico in that hallway, she did it with the rushed finality and reckless courage only the impending, doomed fight against your evil parents can give you.

(In retrospect, she should have at least asked before diving in-  _ consent is never an option,  _ says a voice in her head that sounds way too much like Gert.)

But it was hard to talk while the world crashed down around you, while your crush looked like  _ that,  _ while she'd asked  _ you  _ to come with her, even if just to piss off her ex, even if you were the only viable choice between your ex and a girl who wasn't supposed to even be there _. _

After their lips had met, she had been waiting for the other shoe to drop, for the shove, for the startled look in Nico's eyes, or even worse the disgusted one, but they never came. Instead, she was met softly halfway- which was saying something as she almost broke her neck every time she leaned down to kiss Nico.

When they fought Jonah and their parents at the dig site, when she made the others leave her behind while she held back Jonah, she had thought that, if nothing else, she had got to know Nico all over again, and fall in love with her once more- an experience that felt so familiar and yet so different from the first time- but this time around she had got to hold her, and kiss her, she had got to save her and her friends.

It wasn't that big of a sacrifice if Nico could finally be safe, if Molly could still dance, and Chase could be finally free of his father's shadow, and Alex could stop being so alone, and Gert could fight for everything and everyone and herself.

When she shot that beam of light, she had shone brighter than a supernova, and for a moment she had thought herself truly beautiful for the first time, like a phoenix.

Only to wake in a sterile white bedroom, with a monster who had called himself his father, from whom she had apparently inherited her powers.

_ Are her genes, her looks, her powers a gift from the gods, or a curse, stricken down from the heavens?  _ She doesn't have the strength to think of an answer surrounded by those suffocating walls.

She hadn't expected that her friends would come to her rescue, but they had, and after they managed to escape, she didn't feel free until she was tucked in Nico's warmth again, in the safety of a stolen Gibborim van. 

She'd changed clothes quickly, trying not to look at her reflection, trying not to think about what Jonah had said, about her mother, or her father who wasn't actually, really her father, and how strangers were oh so wrong when they told her she had her father's smile, or his eyes, or... 

She'd much preferred to keep wondering why all the t-shirts from the thrift shop fell a little too high on her navel, instead- she knew she wasn't that much taller than the average American. 

(Once she'd turned and saw Nico stare at the sliver of skin shown by the yellow top, she stopped minding about it all that much. After Nico had kissed her, bashful and half-smiling, she found that no, she didn't mind it at all, as long as Nico kept being by her side.)

And so, when Alex finally deemed it safe to stop to rest somewhere with walls and beds, paid with money he hadn't bothered tell them  _ where _  exactly it came from, they sure did more than kissing.

(Ok, they just made out. But Nico was her  _ first _ . Her first girl, her first kiss that mattered, her first something.)

When it came down to their intimacy situation, any stolen moment was good enough, and as Alex disappeared to god knows where, and as Molly, Chase and Gert went on a quest to find dinner in the least tapeworm inducing place around the motel, Karolina and Nico were left alone, unsupervised, in a room with soft surfaces, it was no wonder where that led to.

Kissing. Lots of kissing.

With her bracelet abandoned on the nightstand near Nico's staff, Nico's skin looked almost ethereal as her muted lights bounced on her skin and the walls around them as they kissed.

It was the kind of kissing that made Karolina's heart beat out of tempo, and wandering hands tremble, and lips ache.

The kind of kissing where Nico would take the lead and leave her a wanting, panting mess underneath her.

The kind of kissing that ended with a sigh, or a moan, and a smug grin on Nico's face- which was hotter she cared to admit.

The kind of kissing that apparently ended with a fond look in Nico's eyes and the softest smile and a whispered: “You're so beautiful...”

It wasn't the first time she'd heard it, she knew how to answer to that sentence, but suddenly all of Karolina's vocabulary consisted of stuttered words and I's while her cheeks grew hotter and hotter, and of course the first thing she managed to say after recovering was a squeak.

It was unfair how Nico could still look so stunning with lips swollen from kissing and smudged lipstick and a smug, so smug grin. She leaned down, so close that she could feel her heartbeat ring out in her chest, so close, and yet so far from kissing her properly. 

“I'm sure someone else must have said it to you,” her lips barely grazing hers, “I remember at least one occasion where Chase said it.”

Karolina made a face at that. “Boys don't count.”

“Don't they, now?” Nico smirked as she sat up on her thighs, “Well, I've also heard Gert say it... and I think Molly, too.”

“Gert says it only to follow it with some kind of remark about society standard of performative beauty, and Molly is just nice.”

Nico scrunched up her nose, “What about that waitress with the undercut who was blatantly __ flirting with you the other day? Or the shop clerk the time before that? Were they also just being  _ nice _ ?”

Karolina hid her face in the crook of her arm, mumbling.

“Sorry, didn't get that.”

Smug, so fucking smug.

“They're not you!” She threw her arm down on the bed and looked Nico dead in the eyes, “Ok? They're not you.”

The thing is, she had been called beautiful from many people many times, but she had never felt beautiful until she acted against their parents to protect Nico, until Nico had seen her,  _ really _  seen her, for the first time, when Nico looked down at her through her half-closed eyelashes, until she had uttered the words with such fondness.

But that was an embarrassing thing to say, and also a lot of pressure to put on a girl, especially the first girl you've ever kissed, and held, and loved- even if she didn't know that particular information yet.

Unfortunately, Karolina was also a lesbian mess of feelings who blurted out stupid things to girls who weren't even her official girlfriend yet- and what if Nico was way more casual about this than her? Oh god, was she  _ too _  into this? Was she reading too much into this whole thing?

Before she could fully spiral into the labels induced panic attack, she noticed Nico blushing until she was red from the tip of her ears to down her neck, and  _ maybe she's not alone in these feelings. _

She rose slowly, sitting down while Nico was still in her lap. She could be brave one more time. Even without the threat of destruction hanging over her head. A last leap of faith- she's getting good at those.

“You may not be the first to tell me that, but when you say it, it doesn't feel like my mother, hiding a critique beneath a compliment, it doesn't feel like a creepy old man staring at me, or a lovesick boy following me around knowing little more about me than my name,” she took a deep breath, lifting a hand slowly to touch with reverence Nico's cheek.

“It feels like you actually see me. Like I'm not just a pretty face and you see that, and I really appreciate it, and it may be too soon to say all of this... But I just-” she stopped her rambling, sighed and kissed Nico softly, with everything she couldn't utter, trying to make her understand the butterflies she feels every time she thinks about her, about them.

“I almost ripped Chase face off when he suggested to leave you behind,” Nico blurted out as soon as she broke the kiss.

“What?”

“He said something like he would want us to go if that was him, and I told him we would have if it was him. But it wasn't him, it was you, and I couldn't think about anything but finding you. Because when you kissed me... I don't know. I couldn't stand the thought of leaving you behind.”

“Oh.”

A warm tingling started to spread from down her toes to the tips of her fingers, that sent her whole head reeling, and her chest did this funny contracting thing like it couldn't contain her heart, like it was trying to escape.

She didn't realize she was glowing brighter until she saw her light reflected in Nico's eyes.

There will be time for a proper declaration of love, maybe she didn't need labels if Nico kept looking at her like that, not now at least. She hooked her arms around Nico's neck and brought her lips down to hers.

Maybe her body was neither a gift nor a curse, maybe it was just a body- and the only thing bodies were meant to do was love. Because, in the end, everyone was just who they decided to be, and she decided to love her friends, to love Nico. Her parents would not taint that, she will not let them. She will learn how to feel beautiful on her own, and she will learn how to love herself.


End file.
